This was said by George Hukuimwe, the Manicaland Province MKD coordinator, at a public meeting on a post mortem of the second all stakeholders’ conference convened by Zimbabwe Election Support Network in the city today.
In his official opening remarks of the second all stakeholders’ conference at the Harare International Conference Centre recently PresIDENT Robert Mugabe said the principals in the Inclusive Government would have the final say on the draft constitution as they were the ones who conceived the Global Political Agreement that resulted in the ongoing constitution making process.
Other Principals to the GPA are Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai (MDC-T) and Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara (MDC – M).
Hukuimwe said Mugabe’s views run contrary to provisions of Article VI of the GPA, which stipulates that the parties shall set up a Select Committee of Parliament, composed of representatives of the parties whose terms of reference shall hold public hearings and consultations in the process of public consultation, over the making of a new constitution for Zimbabwe.
“Mugabe and other GPA leaders are not the only people in Zimbabwe. The whole process of holding the second stakeholders meeting was a waste of time because the parliamentarians are the ones that are going to make massive debates in the parliament and they will not consider what was contributed during the conference. Besides that Mugabe’s utterances are not shared by Tsvangirai and Mutambara,” he said.
Hukuimwe argued that Mugabe’s utterances were a clear sign of the unwarranted interference in the activities of the legislature.
“They (Principals) have no mandate whatsoever to finalise the country’s constitution. Mugabe should not usurp the powers and responsibilities of both Parliament and the people of Zimbabwe,” he added.
He said Mugabe’s remarks were a clear sign that the people’s views who contributed during the outreach programmes would not matter at all.
He said Zimbabwe might have the best constitution in the world, but as long as the constitution or other laws were not respected and obeyed, the document would count for nothing.
Post published in: News